J1.5

Creating a Plugin for Joomla

From Joomla! Documentation

This Namespace has been archived - Please Do Not Edit or Create Pages in this namespace. Pages contain information for a Joomla! version which is no longer supported. It exists only as a historical reference, will not be improved and its content may be incomplete.

Contents

Creating a Plugin for Joomla! 1.5

How to create your own plugin

This How-To should provide you with the basics of what you need to know to develop your own plugin. Most plugins consist of just a single code file but to correctly install the plugin code it must be packaged into an installation file which can be processed by the Joomla! installer.

Creating the installation file

As with all add-ons in Joomla!, plugins are easily installed as a .zip file (.tar.gz is also supported) but a correctly formatted XML file must be included. As an example, here is the XML installation file for the categories searchbot plugin.

As you can see, the system is similar to other Joomla! XML installation files. You only have to look out for the group="xxx" entry in the<install>tag and the extended information in the<filename>tag. This information tells Joomla! into which folder to copy the file and to which group the plugin should be added.

If you are creating a plugin that responds to existing core events, the group="xxx" tag would be changed to reflect the name of existing plugin folder for the event type you wish to augment. e.g. group="authentication" or group="user". See Tutorial:Creating Plugins for a complete list of existing core event categories. In creating a new plugin to respond to core events it is important that your plugin's name is unique and does not conflict with any of the other plugins that may also be responding to the core event you wish to service as well.

If you are creating a plugin to respond to non-core system events your choice for the group="xxx" tag should be different than any of the existing core categories.

Creating the Plugin

Joomla! 1.5 introduces a new, more object-orientated, way of writing plugins. The old method is still supported for backwards-compatibility (see next section).

<?php// no direct accessdefined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');// Import library dependencies
jimport('joomla.event.plugin');class plg<PluginGroup><PluginName>extends JPlugin
{/**
* Constructor
*
* For php4 compatability we must not use the __constructor as a constructor for
* plugins because func_get_args ( void ) returns a copy of all passed arguments
* NOT references. This causes problems with cross-referencing necessary for the
* observer design pattern.
*/function plg<PluginGroup><PluginName>(&$subject){
parent::__construct($subject);// load plugin parameters$this->_plugin => JPluginHelper::getPlugin('<GroupName>','<PluginName>');$this->_params =new JParameter($this->_plugin->params);}/**
* Plugin method with the same name as the event will be called automatically.
*/function<EventName>(){global$mainframe;// Plugin code goes here.returntrue;}}?>

Creating the Plugin (Legacy Mode)

This section describes the legacy method of creating plugins used prior to Joomla! 1.5. Some core Joomla! plugins may still use this method but will be gradually re-written over time. This method is still supported for backwards-compatibility.

The code that you want executed when the event triggers is written as a PHP function. Prior to the function definition you make a call to the registerEvent() method so that the Joomla! event system associates your function with the appropriate event.

With the function $mainframe→registerEvent() your plugin is registered into the Joomla! event system. This means that when the event called '<EventName>' is later triggered, the function called '<FunctionName>' will be called.

Now you can write your plugin function code anyway you want. If you want to use parameters, it's no problem, just use them as usual. You can register as many events and plugin functions together in one file as you want. When you're done, your plugin is ready for use.

Using Plugins in Your Code

Now that you've created your plugin, you will probably want to call it in your code. You might not; the Joomla! core has a number of built-in events that you might want your plugin code to be registered to. In which case you don't need to do the following.

It is important to note that the parameters have to be in an array. The plugin function itself will get the parameters as single values. The return value will consist of an array of return values from the different plugins (so it can also contain multilevel arrays).

If you are creating a plugin for a new, non-core event, it is also important to remember to activate your plugin after you installed it, and of course to precede any reference to your new plugin with the JPluginHelper::importPlugin() command.

Conclusion

The plugin structure for Joomla! 1.5 is very flexible and powerful. Not only can plugins be used to handle events triggered by the core application and extensions, but plugins can also be used to make third party extensions extensible and powerful.